Pitino: Terrence Williams good fit for Celtics

Credit: AP (File)

The Terrence Williams that Rick Pitino talks about seems an entirely different guy than the one who’s now on his fifth NBA team in four seasons with a recent stopover in China thrown in.

But Williams’ coach at Louisville thinks he knows why there has been so much travel, and he sees the not-so-merry-go-round coming to a pleasant stop. The former Celtics coach believes Williams, now on a 10-day contract, will find a home here after failed hopes with the Nets and brief runs with Houston and Sacramento, a training camp stint with Detroit and questions about his basketball character.

“You know, I had a great experience with him,” Pitino told the Herald in a phone interview. “He spent four years with me, and I had a really wonderful experience. He was the type of young man that whatever I asked him to do, he did.

“He was really low maintenance for me to coach. And I was surprised that I heard different in New Jersey. You know, if I asked him to not shoot and go out and get me 15 rebounds create eight or nine assists, whatever I asked him to do, he did. And it was that way for four years. He was a pleasure to coach.”

Pitino and Williams had a close relationship. The coach believes the lack of such ties in Williams’ early NBA days hurt his development.

Said Pitino: “What I told him after this latest thing where we went to China is, ‘Terrence, these guys aren’t going to get to know you like they do in college, where if there’s something wrong at home with your family, you have people who want to know all about it and help you. It’s the pros, and you’ve just got to understand that.’

“And although he wants to come across as a tough guy, he’s anything but that as a person. Now, he’ll play tough on the basketball court, but he wants friends and he wants really to be liked and he wants people to take an interest in him. That’s just the way he is. He was very, very popular in our town, very popular with his teammates. He just probably didn’t understand (how things are in the NBA), but I think he understands it now. I think he’s got a good grasp on that now.”

The Celts, he added, could be the right team at the right time for the versatile 6-foot-6 swingman who may be of most value as a point guard.

“He’s not going to give anybody any trouble; I know that,” Pitino said. “I mean, he’s learned from going to China. He’s matured. And like a lot of these guys, he’s had a tough background. He never had a whole lot of hugs growing up in his life. But I really do think it’ll work out this time, and somebody’s going to get a real good basketball player who’s all about winning, and that’s what really the Celtics are all about, so I think he’ll fit in great.”

Pitino has asked close friends Walter McCarty and Celtics travel and equipment man John Connor to look out for Williams, and Jason Terry has said he’s known him for years from their Seattle ties and plans to be his guide.

And no less an authority than Kevin Garnett has already lauded Williams’ basketball brain and said he’s liked his game from back in college.

“He’s got a very, very high basketball IQ,” said Pitino. “T-Will’s a very smart basketball player. If Doc (Rivers) tells him to do something, he’ll understand everything about the play and how it sets up. He’s very good in film; he knows what to do. And there aren’t very many athletes I’ve coached in my life as good as him.

“A lot of people just think he’s a freak athlete, but he’s a very, very smart basketball player. He knows how to play the game.

“The reason he was so easy to coach is that he was very, very unselfish. He was always about the team. He liked being in the spotlight, but he didn’t care whether he scored 30 or he scored seven. It was all about winning the game, and whatever you asked him to do, he did it. He was a stat-filler every game — you know, 11 rebounds, 13 points, seven assists, three steals.

“And he was consistently doing that for us when we were a No. 1 seed.”

As for the Celtics, Pitino may not follow them enough to know where their playoff seeding stands from one week to the next, but he still counts Paul Pierce among his friends, and he still has positive feelings for the franchise where he sustained his only career blemish, a situation for which he has blamed himself.

“I don’t follow it as much anymore, but I root for the Celtics,” Pitino said. “Celtics fans might not believe that, but I do. Any time I see them in the playoffs, I’m rooting for them.

“When I went down to see them play against the Heat in Miami, Pat (Riley) knew that, and he put me in the Celtics’ section. I still have a lot of friends there, from Paul to Johnny Joe (Connor) to some of the front office people. So certainly I root for them, and now that T-Will’s there it’s an added bonus.”